NEWS DESK
DAMASCUS
Syrian government forces killed 23 rebels near Idlib province on Friday, the deadliest clash to rock a buffer zone where a Russian-Turkish truce is to be enforced.
The attack on a position held by the Jaish al-Izza rebel group took place on the edge of the northwestern province of Idlib, in an area due to be de-militarised.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, government forces moved in to take a high building held by the rebels in a rural area of neighbouring Hama province.
Idlib and some surrounding areas are the last major rebel bastion in Syria, where the Russian-backed government has in recent months retaken much of the territory it had lost since the civil war erupted in 2011.
